fly fishing in TN

Fly Fishing Forum Tying & using freshwater flies
1

a week ago I was able to get on a small stream my daughters house in TN.. my son - in - law (MacLarry) and I spent about 6 hours fishing up and down the water.. we both lost count after about 25 or so fish..

the predominant fish was bluegill with a few smal lmb in between.. sizes of the gills ranged from about an inch or so to the ones I have posted ..

highlight of the day was when MacLarry caught a decent sized bass (about 10" long or so and just at a pound or a little less).. sorry did not get a picture of the bass…

the last picture is of some water bug that neither of us could identify and hoped that you one of you saaavvvyyy fly flingers could identify.. :laughing:

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one ugly a$$ water bug

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[left]forgot to add before.. flies of choice were sz 12/14 wooly worms, a red chrom that FG sent me a while back, sz 14/16 red/black ants, and for the LMB that MacLarry caught a hopper pattern that was again courtesy of my sis FG…

[left]MacFly

2

Those fish are cool as heck!
As far as the bug…a little blurry, but maybe some kind of Stonefly nymph?

Back looks like a centipede, but front looks like a nymph

3

Finally a real Hellgramite - many in the waet mistakenly refer to the stone fly nymphs as this but put your finger in it’s mandibles and you will know they are not the same. Great smallmouth bait. Used them quite a bit as a kid

4

THAT IS WHAT I WAS TRYING TO THINK OF!!!
Right On.

5

Okay, when I said Stonefly sort, here is the adult:

and here is an imitation of the nymph:

6

so just looked it up and this is the larval stage for the dobson fly??..

either way we did not do much touching caused it looked like it wanted to chew MacLarrys fingers off.. lol..

here is a pic of the dobson fly.. any patterns that anyone knows of to match it??

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7

*Now those are some pretty looking fish. That insect is a helgramite. *
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8

oh they are pretty fish… fun to catch.. just wish Id had a lighter weight rod other than the 5/6 I was using.. would of been a bit more fun I think… :slight_smile:

as for that ugly a$$ bug.. did not know what it was but knew ya’ll would come up with an answer for me for sure.. .

MacFly

9

*Hellgrammites are quite common back east.I was about six years old when I first encountered one of those dudes. Pick him up to get a closer look and the sucker gave me a nip. Did you notice their little claws? *

10

yep… at one point MacLarry started to point his finger at it and it kind of raised up like it wanted to bite so we left it alone and put it back in the water and left it alone.. :slight_smile:

just had a thought.. is this thing related to a blood worm?? I remember using them in Japan and if you mishandled them they would give you a good bite…

MacFly

11

No blood worm- as shown above they are a Dobson fly larvae. Used to get them by the coffee can full for bait. Floated them below a bobber or dead drifted them for smallmouth.

12

was just curious… when it was mentioned how these critters could get a hold of you and make it painful it brought back memories of using blood worms when I was doing some fishing in Japan…

MacFly

13

*No nippers on my stone.
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14

hey…no fair putting fake ones in there…:laughing: ..

awesome looking fly though…

MacFly

15

I believe the blood worms you speak of are large worms that live in salt water estuaries. People dig them up when the tide rolls out. They sell them to bait shops. I think they typically are six inches to well over a foot long.

Just recalling some old stuff I read one time.

16

that sounds about right.. I was in Japan at the time and were trying to fish off the quay wall near the base.. all I remember about these worms were they looked a lot like the one I posted, dark red in color, and they could give you a good bite just as was referred to here earlier.. :slight_smile:

MacFly